Eastern Skateboard Supply’s new setup
June 14th, 2007 by Kilwag
Team Pain Skateparks sent in some pictures of a magnificent looking new skate facility they recently finished for Eastern Skateboard Supply in Wilmington, NC.. Eastern is the largest skateboard distributor on the East coast and is owned and operated by former Walker pro Reggie Barnes. The bowl is probably one of the biggest on the East Coast. The first week the park opened it hosted a demo with the Plan B team along with a handful of other pros. I’m just looking at those pictures and I can smell the birch! More pictures and Reggie Barnes after the jump.
Reggie Barnes and Eastern Skateboard Supply
Reggie Barnes was a former freestyle pro for Walker skateboards. Outlook Skateboards has some good pictures (scroll down) of one of his old decks in their freestyle museum. If you absolutely need to ride an old Reggie Barnes model, your closest bet is Outlook’s Tommy Harward pro model which is supposed to be modeled after the Reggie’s old board. That’s not surprising considering Tommy’s first freestyle exposure and encouragement was from meeting Reggie Barnes at a school demo back in 1987. Reggie even gave Tommy his old board. I’m stunned and amazed that there are still pro model freestyle boards. I guess they are calling them flatland boards now, but they look very much like street popsicles with a slightly blunt nose and tail.
Bruce Walker is a longtime figure in east coast skateboarding. He owned and ran Walker Skateboards and Ocean Avenue skateboard distribution, which Reggie actually just bought a year ago. There is a lengthy profile on Reggie written by Transworld Busniess’ Sean O’Brien titled Eastern Power. Yes, freestylers have taken over our industry, but Reggie skates bowls too, as you can see below.
Eastern Skateboard Supply’s new skateboard facility built by Team Pain
And finally we get to the reason most of you probably clicked through. Here are some shots of the new facility sent to us courtesy of Team Pain Skateparks. You can click to enlarge them.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Holy s&#t. This place is for employees of ESS? Man, Reggie’s taking care of the troops, eh? That bowl is amazing. Lunch break must be a scene.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
drooooooooool
June 15th, 2007 at 12:30 am
OMFG. I love birch. Good to see skater-owned companies that take care of their people. Look at just the square footage given to all that good shit. Nice one Reggie!
June 15th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Absolute work of art. Wow.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:43 am
That bowl looks a lot like Caz’s old ramp.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:47 am
what ever happened to that anyway… b2b being the last time i saw it
June 15th, 2007 at 8:42 am
but its private, all of us NC’rs drool over this and don’t get a chance to skate it!!! oh the humanity!! THE HUMANITY!!!!!
June 15th, 2007 at 10:29 am
WOW! Can I get a job there?
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Boy, things must have changed at Eastern. When I worked there you weren’t even allowed to skate in the warehouse at all. Reggie hired some new “management” whose focus was on the money. I think they got into Reggie’s ear and when it was all said and done, all of the emphasis was taken away from the skating part of the biz and the focus seemed to shift to making sure the numbers crunched at the end of the day. That is one of the reasons I ended up leaving Eastern. They were getting all this clout as being such a core distributor and the employees (all skaters) weren’t even allowed to bring their boards in the shop. It got pretty sad there for a while. I say all of that to really emphsis how good it is to see something of this magnitude going up at Eastern. Like I said, things must have changed and it is damn good to see. I hope they lifted the “no skating” ban so they can actually enjoy this shit.
August 15th, 2007 at 4:41 am
no skating ? why build that park ?
October 31st, 2007 at 8:11 am
That is a very nice park. I skated it once and everything was perfect. The birch is awesome and the lines you can throw down are gnarly. The bowl is massive and skates crazy nice. I’m still waiting for a job opportunity to come up so I can skate it again.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
yeah mr’s comments strike close to the heart. its hard to draw that fine line b/w work and skating, when trying to actually make enough. how much is enough? you think that they built a giant grill at the keilbasa plant and those guys eat killer grilled kielbasa all day? or the bread factory theory, love the smell of bread? work there and it fades. Bottom line: There has ALWAYS been something to skate at eastern. The vert ramp, mini ramp,that curb,the new mini ramp, and then this thing. Yes it is closed on most days and sessions must be coordinated through management. and yes it was built by team pain.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I bottled beer for about 8 months. Work sucked, but we lined up after work every night. I barely made it out of there.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:10 am
THAT PARK IS EVEN MORE FUN THEN IT LOOKS SHITS TIGHT, THE HANDRAILS AND HUBBA A PERFECT TANNYS PERFECT BEST PARK ON EASTCOAST